And then it happened to me
by Aura Creed
Summary: Nobody ever wakes up in the morning thinking this is the day they'll die, not really. Peter was no exception. Even in his line of work, with all the injuries he took, all the bullet wounds he obtained, it was nothing but a passing thought. A moment's pause, as he sipped his coffee. His spider-sense was a dull drone that morning but it didn't phase him. Not until it was too late.


**A/N:** I'm late to the Spider-verse train but have this. Don't know how many people did POVs of this guy (probably a couple? I didn't really check) but this sort of consumed me. I hope you guys like it!

Thanks to one(1)egg for being my edittor! You rock!

(Now if I could only get everything else on my to-write list done instead of writing new things out...)

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Ever since he was fifteen, Peter has been no stranger to death. It started with his Uncle, and it continued with the people he couldn't save. The ones he couldn't get to in his early years because of inexperience, and later due to inability. It was something he cursed himself for his whole life, but being Spiderman just seemed to make it worse. Instead of missing school, it was watching someone get crushed under a building. Instead of missing a date, it was arriving too late to a fight to prevent people from becoming the targets to villains who just wanted him dead, just wanted Spiderman dead. A super villain would be running rampant with bodies already lying around, another family that was going to be left behind - going to suffer - because Spiderman wasn't fast enough.

No matter how early he started his patrols, how quickly he'd receive information from the police broadcasts, even as the wind howled in his ears as he timed his swings perfectly, faster than he'd ever been before - some days he'd arrive to a corpse. It was something that swirled in his mind, with a cup of joe in hand and the sun already high in the sky. It would filter through the mental static of a mundane job or a common chore. He hadn't even told his wife yet, but he sometimes still got nightmares about Ben dying while he could do nothing but watch. Watch as all the faces of all the people he couldn't but could've saved passed by in a flurry of color and voices and disappeared, no more. It'd drain all the energy out of him, all the power, and he'd feel like a kid again. Fourteen and still being bullied just for knowing a bit more math than everyone else.

Sometimes the danger would hit him right where his spider-sense would fail him. Sometimes, as he was crashing through the glass of a building, back nearly cracking on tables and face smashing into tile, it would hit him. _This could kill me_, he'd think as he stood up, jumping back out towards the source of his screaming spider-sense. _This could kill me_, his instincts would screech at him as he fell story upon story, reflected in glass as wide as his eyes before his webbing would find purchase and he'd go soaring.

A thought in the back of his head, a rise of panic in the stutter of a heartbeat with the revelation that what he was doing has killed people and could kill him, too. It took years to train himself to ignore it, years more to utilize it - to prevent others from getting injured, to minimize his own injuries than what was strictly necessary until it became a flicker in the back of his mind, a passing thought as quick as one would take note of a blue sky.

It'd been so long that as Peter fought under the grip of the Green Goblin - his face being pressed into the collider - he wasn't expecting it to come back. _This could kill me_, his subconscious was blasting at him, as his vision broke apart and bubbled, different visions flickering in every opening in the web of cities, of people donning masks like his. Peter heard their voices ringing in his head before they were overlaid by the voices of Vanessa and Richard Wilson. _This could kill me_, it reminded him, as his eyes were wide open and he struggled and shook against the particle beam.

As his atoms attempted to rip him apart, trying to decide which reality he should be in, he gasped - _this could kill me_ \- and watched as buildings shifted and time seemed to fuse in on itself, as his spider-sense tingled and bursted like fireworks that rattled his whole body. These people and places, they were-

An explosion tore him back into reality with a deafening crackle. Suddenly he could feel his body stitching back together at the seams, and falling, falling…

Half buried under rubble, the Goblin laying inert nearby, Peter was lucky to still be alive. He looked down, wincing before laying back. The less he moved, the less it hurt, and for some reason he could still feel himself jitter, still feel what must have been the aftereffects of… whatever that beam was. He needed to move. Grunting, he tried to move his legs and huffed as his arms shook, his fingers around rock that just wouldn't budge. Spikes of pain traveled from his elbow like a current and he fell back down into the cement. _This could kill me_. The thought passed like the dirt that hung in the air. It didn't.

And then that kid shows up - he was still around, Peter realized past the haze in his mind. The kid ran through the rubble and crouched over him, looking like a deer in the headlights, a child younger than what he seemed to be.

"Hey! Are you ok?" He tossed a piece of rubble off his chest. One of the smaller ones, one Peter couldn't even move. It made it easier to breathe and he sucked in air.

"I'm fine, I'm fine. Just resting." He couldn't feel his legs. He fought to keep his eyes open.

"Can't you get up?"

"Yeah," Peter huffed a laugh, head hitting the rock behind him. Ow. His gaze pulled away from the kid to look up at the silhouette of the collider above them, dark and shifting as the dirt tried to settle. "Yeah. I always get up." He coughed. "Coughing's probably not a good sign." _This could kill me_.

Voices, far but too close for comfort came around, and Peter's eyes darted toward them. He could feel adrenaline he didn't think he still had flow into the rest of his body. His spider-sense tingled like the nerves in his back. _This will kill him_. He raised his head and shoulders, ignoring the throbbing ache. "Listen, we gotta team up here. We don't have that much time." Peter grasped the boy's hand and placed the flash drive in his palm. Somehow, through a collider and a fall that smashed him under cement, it was unbroken. "This override key is the only way to stop the collider. Swing up there-" he pointed, "-use this key, push the button, and blow it up."

The kid looked at him. Worried and confused and glassy all at once. Peter grimaced. He forgot he didn't know how to swing yet. _I'll teach him later_. "You need to hide your face. You don't tell anyone who you are. No one can know," He leaned forward. "He's got everyone in his pocket."

"What..?"

Peter clung to the boy's wrist. He tried to stop his own hand from trembling - did he notice? "If he turns the machine on again, everything you know will disappear." The visions came back to him as he let another painful gulp of air balloon in his lungs. "Your family, everyone." Peter grit his teeth. "_Everyone_. Promise me you'll do this." His voice felt weak in his chest, coming out in a rush of desperation as his mind clung to threads. He stared right into the kid's eyes as he faltered and looked around. To Peter, to the rubble, to the drive in his hand. Peter knew what he was asking, knew he was asking so much of him, so much of someone he hadn't even gotten the chance to teach yet. Someone who was just like him and thrust into a situation way over his head. Those moments of silence teetered as he held his breath. A flare of pain came in a dot of fear, but the thoughts behind it were muddled, smothered by the face he put on, even behind the mask.

Finally, the kid looked up. A determined line formed on his lips. "I promise."

Peter nodded, relieved but not truly feeling it. Not yet. "Go," he waved, swallowing a cough, "Destroy the collider." He watched the kid pick himself up, looking between him and the source of the voices. "I'll come and find you."

He saw the kid go back to a piece of metal scaffolding, ready to climb it. He looked back, eyes still wide and worried and Peter waved his hand insistently, smiling. "It's gonna be okay." He rasped, his head falling back but he heard the kid climbing up, heading up there. Anywhere that wasn't here. He'd be ok. Peter would be ok, too.

And then Fisk turned around the corner. _This could kill him_.

"I'd say it's nice to see you again, Spiderman"- Fisk flicked a bit of something off his sleeve. It rang like a coin when it hit the ground, -"but it's not."

The way he said that almost made him chuckle. Almost. "Hey, Kingpin. How's business?"

"Boomin'!" The man laughed.

"Nice-" suddenly Peter's mask was off and his eyes rolled as he leaned back. "Aw, that's a no-no." But for some reason, Peter didn't care as much as he thought he would. Maybe it was the adrenaline wearing off. His family...

Fisk only laughed, mask dangling from his hand, like this was just another altercation, another fight. He could let the haze take him, fall into unconsciousness right now. That sounded nice. _This could kill _all _of them_. Peter dug his nails into his palms and forced his flickering eyes open. He kept talking. "This might open a blackhole under Brooklyn. It can't be worth the risk." No amount of money was worth that.

Fisk leaned down, a glare in his eyes. "It's not always about the money, Spiderman." Damn, he was right on the money. Hah. He wished he had the energy to expend on telling a joke like that.

The Prowler walked up, gauntlet prepped. _Really?_ Peter sighed, his heart heavy in his chest.

_This could kill them_. His eyes flickered to the gauntlet, to the masked villain, and then back to Fisk. "Don't you want to know what I saw in there?" His voice felt uneasy in his throat, even as Fisk moved a hand in front of the Prowler, preventing the man from approaching him, from knocking him out. Killing him.

_This could kill me_. He gulped, letting a breath sail past his lips. His body screamed at him but those visions were practically burned into his corneas. "I know what you're trying to do." His voice shook at the end. He couldn't tell if Fisk noticed it or not. _This will kill me_, his mind echoed over and over, overlapping with itself as it tried to make him flinch, to back down from his next statement. _This will kill me this will kill me-_

_This will kill them. _

"And it won't work. They're gone." _I can't let this kill them._

Not for people who would never come back, like his Uncle. Like the officers. Like all the people he was unable to save and won't get to save. Not anymore. His spider-sense was going off the walls as he steeled himself, his eyes narrowing even as his senses heightened and he could hear everyone breathing - Fisk, the Prowler, and the kid.

_The kid_, the one whose name he never asked for. The one he'd never get to give his name too - one of the many he was going to leave behind to the men in front of him, who were going to end the world without Peter around. _This is it_, he thought, as he saw the lines on Fisk's face contort. _This will kill me_.

Nobody ever wakes up in the morning thinking this is the day they'll die, not really. The mind is driven to prepare against death, to avoid it at all costs and it uses anxiety as a warning for anything that could harm it. To a human's instincts these red flags would pop up over tests, as if they'll die by not passing them. Die by not succeeding. Die by not making their next appointment, or not getting to class on time. Peter was no exception. Even in his line of work, with all the injuries he took, all the bullet wounds he obtained, it was nothing but a passing thought. A moment's pause, as he sipped his coffee. A stolen breath, as he swung from towers of glass and life. A stolen breath…

MJ. The way her eyes crinkled and her hair bounced, the way she joked with him around the kitchen. His best friend - his wife. He was going to miss her.

It only took a moment for Fisk to raise his arms. It only took another for him to crash them down on Peter's chest, caving it in, ribs stabbing his heart into silence.

The shock alone was enough to take him out, as the world flashed and the haze gave way to nothing but darkness.

And yet, through it all, his instincts, his spider-sense, and the moment the colors turned to black, he wasn't scared. Not of the dark.

Not when he'd seen a spider, dressed in black and red through the webs of the multiverse with a smile that fit that kid's face so nicely. Even without a teacher, he'd be fine - and hopefully, luckier than Peter ever was.


End file.
